5 min read

Adding Realism to the Image

As of the current state of our image, it’s almost done.  But we could still do something about adding even more believability to it than just our “2-d object on hand” setup here, right? First thing to consider is that photographed scenes aren’t actually as clean-looking as they are and as compared to common CGish images.  Just to break this cleanliness apart, let’s add in a simple cloud noise to our heart.  If that still doesn’t work for you, you could go ahead and paint over some details like cracks, dirt, etc.  This is to simulate the wear and tear effect that is always present everywhere we look at.

To add this texture, let’s first create a new transparent layer to work on and let’s call it “texture” or something much more meaningful to you and easier to remember.  This will be the layer that will hold the cloud texture to use for the heart.  After adding this new layer, right click on the image window and select Filters > Render > Clouds > Solid Noise (as seen in the screenshot below).

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Creating the Texture

Again, a pop-up window will appear wherein you can input values for the noise. This will entirely depend on your preference.  This fill then fill-up the entire layer with the cloud noise texture that we’ll use as overlay image for the heart later on.  Check the screenshot below for my settings.

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Cloud Noise Options

You’ll notice now that what we see is just pure texture which is not what really wanted.  Instead we’ll use it as an overlay effect on top of our layer stack.  Let’s do this by changing the layer mode from Normal to Overlay then let’s adjust the opacity of the texture layer to something relevant and subtle.

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Texture Overlay

However, we notice that the texture is affecting everything in our image including the hand and the cloth.  But we only want the heart to be affected by the texture.  We can do this in a couple of ways: the easiest would be to use the Eraser Tool to erase portions of the texture layer so we only leave the part of the heart, but doing this though will add more layers of undo levels everytime we stroke our eraser. What if we wanted to only have this single layer to work on yet have the flexibility as though we were switching from two layers (an original and a duplicate).  With this in mind, I think it’s time we use Layer Masks for more flexibility over our layer management.

To apply our masking, let’s first create a selection to exclude the other parts of the image other than the heart, do this by right clicking on the heart layer then selecting Alpha to Selection. What this will do is select regions of the layer where it is opaque, in this case we’re only selecting the heart shape.

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Creating the Heart Selection

Now with the heart shape selection active, let’s go back and activate our layer texture from which we’ll be creating our layer mask on (be sure that your selection is still active or else it will defeat the purpose of even creating it in the first place).  Right click on the texture layer and select Add Layer Mask (see screenshot).

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Creating a Layer Mask

With the pop-up window that appears, select Black (full transparency) then press Add.  You’ll then notice that the effects the texture has are gone now, that’s because we filled the whole layer mask up with color black (which means full mask), making everything in the layer appear as nothing.  But since we want the current heart selection to have an effect on the layer, we’ll do the reverse instead, by filling up the selection with color white (#FFFFFF). Do this by selecting the layer mask, and not the layer itself, then use the Bucket Fill Tool to fill the selection with white.  Now we’ll notice the effects take place.

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Applying the Layer Mask

 

We’re only one step close to finishing the compositing here (yes, finally!). If we’re lucky enough to have gotten this far and not got bored the hell out of us, there’s one thing believably missing in our composition here, and that is the way the two fingers seem to be blocked by the heart (which shouldn’t be).  We should instead see the fingers somehow embrace parts of the heart.

With all of our settings for the heart (highlights, shadows, and textures) done, we can now merge all of this into only one layer so we would only be working on one instead of applying the same effect over the rest of the layers which will eventually become a burden.  To merge all of the heart layers, let’s first turn off the visibility of the photograph layer, then right click on any of the layers comprising the heart then choose Merge Visible Layers then choose Expanded as Necessary.  This will then compress all of the heart layers into a single layer which would be very handy for our proceeding steps.

Photo Compositing with The GIMP

Merging Visible Layers

 

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